


Before Echoes Fade

by Darci



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Male-Female Friendship, Mentions of Cancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22090150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darci/pseuds/Darci
Summary: He's just an old bus driver from Sheffield. Nothing to get worked up over.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Before Echoes Fade

He knows these pains. It’s been years since he felt them, searing into his bones, making his blood feel sluggish beneath the skin. It feels a bit different this time, though. Sharper. Angrier. He should go to the doc, he thinks. A normal human one, who will bombard his body with invisible rays and will inject him with medicine containing unpronounceable chemicals. He’s been there before. Knows the lingering malice of it, the taste of sick in his throat. He can’t do it again, he thinks. He’s old.

He’s alone. Not _really_ alone- he has Ryan and Yaz and the Doc- but they’re not Grace. He’d found another half to his soul and she’s gone now. She’d carried him through before. Who’ll carry him now? Ryan and Yaz are so young, he can’t burden them, not with that, and anyway it’s _his_ job to look after them. Not that they need looking after. Clever and quick as they are, and he can barely keep up with them on a good day. He pants after them as they run around strange worlds, his knees cracking and sweat stinging his eyes. He shouldn’t be running around so much. It’s no good for his heart.

And the Doc? She can fly through time and space on a whim. She can command monsters. What could he mean to her? She’ll keep Ryan and Yaz safe, she’s sworn it many times, and he’ll just get in the way. Slow them down. Wait up for old Graham, now, he’s tired.

He is so tired, but he can’t stop. He’s tasted it now, the universe and the wild future, seen the sands of alien deserts. He couldn’t stay behind, subsisting on stories from the others. Would they leave him behind, in Sheffield? If they stayed, could he bear it? What are his options?

He hasn’t decided yet, has shoved the question to the back of his mind, when the Doctor scans him with her sonic thingamajig. She’s scanned Ryan and Yaz already while blustering on about making sure there’s no psychic damage.

“Human brains are so _fragile_ -“ she mutters, flicking the scanner from Ryan to Graham. (“What?” asks Ryan, but she ignores him like she always seems to ignore questions she doesn’t like.) He doesn’t know what the little blinking lights mean but he sees her hands pause for a moment, her brow furrows lightly before smoothing into her normal peppy grin. Obviously a fake smile, her eyes not sparkling as much as they should, and he’s surprised the others don’t see it.

“All good!” she chirps. She doesn’t look at him. Instead she runs her eyes over the younger two, taking in their muddy clothes and Yaz’s sodden hair. “I think the TARDIS has rearranged a bit, but there should be hot baths for you near the squash court, if you can find it.”

Yaz rolls her eyes and Ryan shakes his head. “I really need a wash,” notes Yaz. “Come on!” She tilts her head, smiling at Ryan and Graham, energetic and seemingly ready to race around this maze for a few hours.

The bones in his legs hurt. A deep ache in his shins. Sitting down seems like a good idea right now. He waves the younger ones away. “I’ll catch you up in a bit, just need some rest.”

They run off, their youth shielding them from fear, adrenaline from the chase still pumping through them. Footfall and laughter echo in the corridors. Graham and the Doctor watch them go, nostalgic for the brief days of childhood and adolescence; the Doctor has made some offhand comments about her age, implying that she is far older than she looks. Sometimes he can see it in her eyes or in the weary set of her shoulders. She can’t fool him, and now it looks like he can’t fool her either.

“Alright, Graham?” She’s looking too closely, fiddling with the sonic. She runs her hand over the console buttons, traces a green button wonderingly, glances at him. He shrugs, sits.

“Not bad, Doc.”

She bites her lip and frowns. Seems to deeply consider a lever before her shoulders set with resolve. She glances to the corridor where Yaz and Ryan have just disappeared, listens for a moment. There are several chairs scattered around the console room. None of them matches the others. The one Graham is sitting on is brown leather. The closest chair to him is an atrocious orange thing that looks like it was hauled from a 1970’s bachelor pad. The Doctor flops onto the orange atrocity, leans towards Graham, and her smile is gone.

“I don’t want to alarm you, Graham, and it could be nothin’-“ she speaks softly but quickly, unable to contain her rambling even for this. “And the sonic isn’t always right, so I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you, you know tech can get all sorts of wonky, but I think I picked up somethin’ off when I scanned you so-”

“I know.” It’s not often he’s seen the Doctor taken off guard. He should savor it while he can. She blinks. 

“You what?”

“I know, Doc. I’ve had cancer before, and believe me, you don’t forget that sort of thing.”

She looks at a loss. When she speaks again she’s as serious as he’s ever seen her. “It looked quite advanced, Graham. I don’t know how much an Earth hospital could do.”

The first time, he’d had a lot of time to think. Waiting in the chemo room, a needle in his chest, dripping. He’d thought a lot about dying then. He’d come to terms with death then, and when he was declared in remission he’d felt death’s claw retract but he had known it would never completely leave him. Death would come for him someday, and he’d sworn he would face it bravely when it did.

“I know,” he tells the Doctor. “I figured there was nothing for it this time.”

Her hands twitches, starting as if she’s suddenly remembered something. “There’s a hospital, with technology far more advanced than Earth’s, they can heal anything. We can pop on over, get you fixed up, browse the gift shop. Good as new, yeah?”

He hesitates. She sucks in her breath and looks down. “Take some time to think about it, Graham. Have you told Ryan?”

He hasn’t. Ryan has been so cheerful lately, like he’s finally let go of his grief over Grace. Graham can’t bring himself to crush that seed of joy. Ryan has been through enough. "Ryan’ll be alright.”

She looks unconvinced. The TARDIS beeps softly, blinks tiny lights sleepily. He reaches across the space between them and squeezes her hand reassuringly. Is it strange that he’s comforting her? She squeezes back then tosses her hair and glares at him in playful defiance. “Graham O’Brien, you are not allowed to die! I won’t have it! We still have places to go and custard creams to eat! And- and I can’t stand endings, they’re always sad, so you must stay. Understand?”

The ache in his bones. He feels heavy with weariness. “Not always.”

“What?”

“Endings aren’t always sad. Not when you’re ready for them.”

Her eyes snap to him, hard and sudden. She squints and stares at him, then, just as suddenly, breaks her gaze and looks away. “Someone else said that to me once.” They’re both quiet. The TARDIS hums softly, soothing.

“I’m not scared, Doc. I’ve been ready for a while, I think. Since Grace died. And I don’t want you to get upset over it, neither. I’m just an old bus driver from Sheffield, eh? Nothin’ to get worked up over.”

She whips toward him, eyes blazing, grasping his hands hard in her surprisingly strong grip. “Don’t you dare say that, don’t you _dare_! You are so important, all of you are. The most important things in the universe, and I’ve seen a lot of the universe so that’s saying somethin’!”

His throat feels thick and there’s a wet prickling behind his eyelids. Graham has never been an important man. He has never wanted to be, has cherished his ordinary life. His proudest moments have been when Grace, aglow with warmth and love, had said “I do”, and when Ryan accepted him as his grandfather. Maybe not much to others, but they mean the world to him. Maybe he means the world to others too.

He says, “I’ll think about it. The hospital. I’m not making any promises, though.”

She sniffs quietly, releases her grasp. “I think this calls for some custard creams.”

She leaves him to fiddle with the console, and Graham thinks about cold hospital corridors and small sharp needles. He thinks about death, the darkness and silence where Grace waits. He thinks about Ryan and Yaz, so blindingly bright and alive. He has a lot to think about, but now the Doctor is returning and all he wants to think about is biscuits and tea with his friend.

He has time enough for this.


End file.
